Emily's Sense of Snow
by shego219
Summary: Sort of drawn from "Smilla’s Sense of Snow," Prentiss narrates as her life takes on chaos during a case in Washington.


Emily's Sense of Snow

Summary: Sort of drawn from Smilla's Sense of Snow; Prentiss narrates as her life takes on chaos during a case in Washington

One-shot

Contains pieces borrowed from the book Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg

It's freezing - an extraordinary zero degrees Fahrenheit - and it's snowing. I've never been a fan of cold weather. I have my jacket zipped up to my ears, and my hands in my pockets, but my eyes are fixated on the body.

A boy, ten years old at the most, is lying face down on the pavement. The wind whistles around us, swirling snowflakes in patterns in the air. There's a stab wound near the base of his neck. The lack of blood on the surrounding snowdrifts proves this wasn't the site of the stabbing. I look up at the window six stories above. It's open.

_It's the thought of death that is horrifying; the phenomenon itself always comes as naturally as a sunset._

Morgan's saying something to me. I shake my head, backtracking, clearing it of thoughts.

"Sorry, what?"

They don't really understand why I do what I do. I have to compartmentalize. I can't let this job become a part of me. I'm afraid if I let it all in, it would overwhelm me and I'd be lost.

This isn't the first murder. If it were we wouldn't be here. But that doesn't make it any less sad or any less real.

They started almost a week ago out here on Shaw Island in Washington. Little boys, six to twelve years old, being stabbed to death, then pushed out a window in their family's apartment. All of them went to the same school, and all of them had flawless grades on their report cards. So far, that's our only connection.

I'm watching Reid ask the local police questions about the scene. It's hard to believe that he was our oldest victim's age when he graduated from High School.

The rest of the morning seems to pass in a haze. I'm here. I'm there. We're briefing the local authorities on who and what to look out for. Hotch and Gideon do most of the talking and I take to hiding in the shadows, grateful to get away. Something about this situation is getting to me. I feel like I'm under a microscope being watched. I figure I can be wrong for once and shake it off as jet-leg.

I bump in JJ down at the police station. She looks a little more tired than usual, a little sadder. We all start to look a little sadder with every case.

I approach her with a coffee and a half-hearted smile. "Any new leads?" She shakes her head, disappointed. I notice she's holding a newspaper, staring at a headline I can't read from the angle I'm at. "What's that?"

JJ turns the paper around and hands it to me so I can read it. "The media's having a field day, what else?" She sighs. "They've even got a nickname for the victims." I stop scanning the article and look up at her quizzically.

" 'The Lost Boys.' " She smiles forcibly. "I fail to find the humor in."

"So do I." We both set down our cups of coffee, which seemed so warming a moment ago.

Something gnaws at my stomach, or is it my conscience? Shouldn't I be able to tell the difference? The Lost Boys…

I think we lost Reid. True, I've only known him a matter of months as he so harshly pointed out, but I call them like I see them.

I swing by his hotel room on my way out to supper. I go to knock on the door, and it opens by itself.

"Reid?" No one answers.

Tentatively, I step over the threshold and into the room. Two beds, one with Morgan's stuff thrown on it, the other occupied. I go over to him. He looks like a sick child, like one of our corpses. I shake his arm. "Reid?" I whisper urgently. Something's not right. It doesn't take profiler to know this.

I'm back not ten minutes later with Morgan on my heels. He'll know what to do.

"Do you know what's going on?" I'm in full-interrogation mode at this point.

"Most of it. At least, I thought I did. Reid told me he'd go out with us for supper, that he'd meet us there. I forgot my wallet at the station, so I went back to look for it." Morgan crosses the room and kneels on the floor by the bed, checking on Reid for himself.

I repeat this to myself slowly. "He'd go out with us for supper, he'd meet us there…" _So why the hell did he go to sleep?_

We've both asked ourselves the same question, and we're both stumped.

I push a lock of hair out of my face and fold my arms across my chest, almost defensively. "This isn't like him, he's always leaving clues." The levels of distress and panic in my voice are slightly alarming, making me feel even more defensive. "Is there something we're missing? Morgan?"

It must be his turn to be spacing out. "Dang it, Reid," Morgan says, more to himself than to me, "what are you up to?" He sighs, frustrated. I go over to the window and look out. I look back at Reid. I can't believe he hasn't woken up yet.

Morgan goes over to the chair with Reid's bag. He picks it up to move so he can sit down.

_Clink_

Morgan raises his eyebrows and looks at me. I walk over to the table where he's sitting. Morgan, who hasn't wasted any time, is already going through Reid's bag.

I can tell he's found something by the look on his face. Emotions pass through his eyes, too fast to tell, but I know one of the ones I catch is disappointment. Slowly, he pulls his hand out. It's clasped around something small. Two things, it looks like. He opens his fist, his outstretched palm holding out what looks like…

"Oh my God." I put my hand over my mouth. I try to isolate this in my mind, like so many other parts of my life. _Don't let this interfere, don't let this interfere_. It's not working.

I once heard my father say that you could live a long healthy life on heroin. If you could afford it. The stuff itself has an almost preservative effect. What puts junkies in their graves are the cold stairways and liver infections and the contaminated additives and AIDS and the exhausting business of getting money. But if you can afford it, you can live with your dependency. That's what my father said.

By now, Morgan's on his feet, pacing I think. I can't see him anymore. He's trying not to let his anger get the better of him. I know if this were any other suspect or felon he'd be pounding the walls, breaking things, shaking some sense into the person. But it's Reid. We lost him. And he needs to be found.

I swallow hard. "So what do we do?" I ask slowly. "Turn him over to Gideon and Hotch?"

"No…" He's just as confused as I am.

I look at Reid again, tempted to take his pulse. I'm getting mad. This is so weird. Why should I be worried? He's been so snappish with me lately!

_But he's just a kid, says a voice from deep inside me._ I had no idea she was still buried in there. _And he's your friend. You're part of all he has for family._

"We could wake him up," I suggest, slightly surprised to find that I was the one talking. "We could confront him now. Or tomorrow, if he doesn't want to talk tonight." _Or tomorrow, so we've had time to think and aren't so mad at him._

Morgan contemplates this. "No," he says slowly with an air of finality in his voice. "We confront him when we get back to Quantico."

I nod. Then I turn to leave, brushing past Morgan on my way out. I almost want to cry, but I can't. My work here is done.

We catch the killer the next day around ten in the morning. The parents of one of the victims' friends called in to report a stocky man in a trench coat prowling the parking lot of their apartment building, the same building as the first murder site we came to when we arrived. The killer claims to be a teacher at the victims' school. He had a knife and a gun, and he said he was going to kill himself this time, too.

_He was a teacher at the victims' school._ That's the part that makes me forget, trip for a fraction of a second.

I see the parents, clutching their son between them. They watch as the dizzy blue and red lights shed light on a man. A man intent on killing their son. A man who has already shattered their son's world. A man being arrested and hopefully put away for life.

We all live our lives blindly believing in the people who make the decisions. Believing in science. Because the world is inscrutable and all information is hazy.

I'm still waiting on the sidewalk by the entrance to the building. For what, I'm not quite sure. I'm just going through the motions by now anyway.

"Prentiss?" Morgan's standing by me. I didn't hear him come up.

"The rest of the team's waiting… you ready?"

I look at him, search his eyes with mine. We both know what he's really talking about.

_We don't really have a choice,_ I tell myself. _This could already be out of our hands. Maybe it always was._

Another person dead, another case solved. Another file being closed in my mind. I shut my eyes, listening for something. None of this is any different.

Just another flight home.

"Tell us, they'll say to me. So we will understand and be able to resolve things. They'll be mistaken. It's only the things you don't understand that you can resolve. There will be no resolution." – Peter Hoeg.


End file.
